Ohio pediatricians working together to keep young asthma patients well have seen significant improvements, prompting more doctors to join the effort.

The Ohio chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ project is part of a national effort to improve quality of life and keep kids in school and out of the hospital.

The last round of the project in Ohio, which ran from September 2011 to October 2012, concluded with a significant cut in missed school days, missed work days for parents and urgent-care and emergency-department visits.The academy evaluates “optimal care” using a number of factors and has reported that the medical practices are seeing good results. From September to August, the practices went from delivering “optimal care” from 50 percent of the time to 80 percent of the time.Starting this month, more pediatricians have joined a new round of the project. In all, 42 practices are involved.

To improve care, doctors follow certain guidelines for identifying and caring for asthma patients, including finding the best medication to keep the disease under control and limit flare-ups.

Elizabeth Dawson, the director of education at the academy’s Ohio chapter and the project’s leader, said the most important thing participants are doing is creating “asthma action plans” for patients.

The plans detail the optimal care for each child based on his or her circumstances. Some children have particular problems with seasonal allergies, for instance, while others have asthma typically aggravated by exercise. Parents are encouraged to keep a diary that tracks asthma attacks to try to better identify triggers, she said.

Dr. William Long, who works at Pediatric Associates in Pickerington, said this project gives doctors concrete goals and measurements, which have made a difference.

At his practice, more time now is devoted to patient education, and there is more focus on spirometry tests, which measure lung function, Long said.

He said he was surprised to learn that at the beginning of the project, his practice met all the best standards with 17 percent of patients. Now, it’s 80 percent.For Zion Fitzgerald, a 13-year-old from Reynoldsburg who goes to Long’s practice, good asthma control has meant taking oral medications every night.

When Zion was younger, he relied on an inhaler and had frequent and frightening asthma attacks. A few times, his parents had to call an ambulance, said his father, Garvin Wilson. Now, he has an inhaler for emergencies but doesn’t have to use it often.

Dr. Jerry Tiberio, who practices at Muskingum Valley Health Center in Zanesville, said that participation has prompted better education of doctors and nurses.One area that requires vigilance is making sure children understand how to use their inhalers. “I think most parents want to do what’s right for the children, but sometimes it just doesn’t play out,” Tiberio said.

Dr. Suzanne Gunter, a Brown County pediatrician, recently joined the quality-improvement effort and said her practice will benefit from standardizing asthma care for kids.

“This puts it in a more-structured form so people don’t fall through the cracks,” she said.mcrane@dispatch.com